


Guide and Counsel

by keeponshouting



Series: To Be Wild [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I am too tired to be sure I'm getting all the right tags, M/M, Minor Injuries, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeponshouting/pseuds/keeponshouting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Combeferre is the Guide and a guide is a thing that Grantaire has never had. That is a fact which they have never discussed but it is also a fact which they both understand.  It is a fact deduced from a knowledge of roads and rails and stars only half-followed.  It is a fact pulled from a thousand words and a million paintings.  It is a fact that always brings R to 'Ferre's home and nowhere else on nights like these.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guide and Counsel

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a characterization/interaction study for Combeferre in a collab 'verse. Then, uh, this happened instead.

Combeferre is the Guide and a guide is a thing that Grantaire has never had. That is a fact which they have never discussed but it is also a fact which they both understand.  It is a fact deduced from a knowledge of roads and rails and stars only half-followed.  It is a fact pulled from a thousand words and a million paintings.  It is a fact that always brings R to 'Ferre's home and nowhere else on nights like these.

When they sit in the bathroom, Combeferre perched on the sink and R curled into a ball, fully clothed in the shower, they don't speak for a long time. They just listen to the water and watch it run red down the drain. Neither knows if the color is paint or blood anymore and both wonder if such things even matter. R bleeds art like Enjolras breathes revolution.

Enjolras would be furious right now if he were here.

"My eye's gone black, I think."

Crouching by the gap in the curtain, 'Ferre hums. "Probably. Looked like it was heading that way before.  Let me see?"

When Grantaire turns his head, black and blue and painfully swollen, there is no doubt.

"At least your nose doesn't look broken," is all Combeferre can say by way of reassurance, and he takes R's chin in a careful grip to get a better look, "though I'd like to call Joly over in a bit, just to check."  He pauses to lean back on his heels, hand returning to leave a wet spot on his knee as he adds, "That is, if you don't mind."

Grantaire nods.  He has never thought to mind any suggestion that Combeferre has ever made because Combeferre has always watched him, always listened, since the day he came into their circle.  Combeferre knows which ideas R will hear out and which he will outright refuse.  Still, he asks permission ever time just in case.

"Why don't you take an actual shower?"  He puts the tone of a question at the end, though they both know that it's more of a command.  "You look like you haven't had one in a week."  Which is possible and probable and may very well understate the truth of it but there is no way to know without asking and he won't do that.  "There are clean towels under the sink, as usual.  I'm going to go find us something to eat."

And make some phone calls, though that part is an unstated understood.

He calls Joly first.  No one picks up so he calls Bossuet.  The voice that answers belongs to Musichetta.  They're all at her flat and Joly says he needs to go back to his and get some things.  All three promise to be over in ten.  Combeferre hangs up and calls Bahorel next.

The second conversation doesn't go quite as well.  Bahorel is a man of violence and so he reacts violently.  He is Combeferre's complete opposite in that way and that opposition is burning in moments like these.  There are threats and shouting in response to quiet and calm and that is why R is where he is and not home, where Bahorel would be ready to charge out with his fists, if Feuilly weren't there to hold him back.

His next call is much less lively, Courfeyrac humming, sleepy, on the other end.  There's a promise to tell Marius, to call Jehan, to find a place that isn't closed and pick up some coffee and dinner on his way.  They each have their parts to play and Courf is the Center, forever and always.  He is the heart where Combeferre is the brain.

The final call is to their body.

"Enjolras? -- Yeah hey.  Sorry if this is a bad time but I'm afraid it's too important to wait. -- No, nothing to do with the protest.  I've got all the proper paperwork together.  Have for a week now. -- Listen, can you come over?"  And he knows that his tone has said it all when there is silence.

The pipes whine in the way that they always do when the shower goes warm.  It's enough to reassure him that Grantaire is still conscious.  On the other end of the line, Enjolras is in motion.

"Everyone else is already on their way, tasks assigned.  He's a bit of a mess but mostly fine.  Well, as fine as R tends to be."

Enjolras will be there in a matter of minutes.

He's messing around the kitchen when the water turns off and he pokes his head into the hallway as the bathroom door opens.  When Grantaire steps out, he's wearing nothing but a towel, ribs visible through a skin too thin, bruises spreading and face battered, left eye swollen shut, the right still slightly unfocused.  It's a sight to make Combeferre's heart ache.  It's a sight he has seen too many times.

"You can borrow some of my clothes," he says.  "I can get something for you or you can just go to my room and get it yourself, if you like."

The pause is a little too long not to worry but R eventually nods once and shuffles down the hall.

Combeferre follows him, just to be safe.

The first knock at the door is less a knock and more a thump to announce that the door will soon be open.  Courfeyrac and Jehan come in with Joly and the lot close behind.  They set food and coffe on the dining table, begin to separate it, start their ritual.  Combeferre walks with Joly back down the hall.

"What happened?"

"He's not saying."

"How bad is it?"

'Ferre just opens the room as his answer.

The second knock is Bahorel and he is, unsurprisingly, a seething mass of rage.  He charges in like a bull, a lion which will never be tamed down to a lamb, and Feuilly has a hand on his back to calm him.  Nothing comes between the tornado and the bedroom and he does not stop until he is certain, reassured by Joly if not by Grantaire's glazed expression, that everything will be fine come morning.  When he returns to the others, his temper is still boiling, but he looks less murderous for knowing that no lasting damage has been done.

The third makes no pretense of knocking and all is still and quiet at their leader's entry.  Where Bahorel rushed like fire, he moves with cold calm and purpose.  Where Joly brought interrogation, he is a silent fury.  Enjolras in anger is terror.

Combeferre waits and watches and tempers with mercy.  His presence is steadying.  His hand is grounding.  His thoughts are settling and that is why he is here.  Always.

He grips Enjolras by the elbow as they stand in the bedroom doorway.  Joly is talking in hushed tones to Grantaire, who seems to hear little and speak even less.  Looking sidelong at Enjolras's expression, he can't help but wonder if the man would stop breathing if he let go.

"It's not a concussion," Joly tells them, still examining his patient, face pinched with aggravation, lost for cheer and leaning into outrage.  "I think--  Well, I think someone drugged him, actually.  That is what I think."

Enjolras stiffens and Combeferre tightens his hold.

Joly slaps his palms against his thighs, uttering a sound that acts as voice for all of them.  "Of all people on Earth!"  He finally turns to face them.  "Why would someone drug R?"

Combeferre breathes and the arm in his hand is shaking.  "Enjolras?"

In the next moment, Enjolras and Joly have switched places.

"R, what happened to you?"  Tight voice and twitching fingers hesitate, wait for a response.  When none comes, they spread, slow and careful, over the edges of darkening bruises.  "R, look at me."

Nothing.

"Goddamnit, Grantaire!"

The tone makes the entire room wince but the reaction is visible and so it brings hope.  Joly excuses himself for the moment.  Combeferre stays by the door.  Enjolras turns Grantaire's face up toward him.

To watch is bitter yet heartening, painful but warm, and Combeferre says nothing as Enjolras repeats his command without room for disobedience, repeats it like reassurance, like desperation.  Look at me.  R's eyes are too dilated.  Look at me.  They still try to focus.  Look.

Grantaire slips forward until their foreheads rest together and Combeferre looks away, tips his own head down until his glasses rest at the end of his nose.

Enjolras sighs.  "Grantaire..."

"They were after Eponine."

Enjolras and Combeferre both start, though it's the former who asks.  "What?"

There's a pause, a delay, not a hesitation.  Slurred repetition.  "Eponine."

"What about--  Who the hell is Eponine?"

Combeferre finally clears his throat.  "Dark-haired girl.  Spends a lot of time around R's place.  Cosette's foster sister, if I'm not mistaken.  Her little brother likes to hang around Courf and quotes you like the Bible."

A twitch of shoulders speaks of near motion, Enjolras almost turning to face the man speaking.  Grantaire leans in.  Too heavy.  Dead weight and useless limbs.  The movement stills.

"R, focus."

"Hnn."  R's eyes flick up, meeting Enjolras with a look more direct than before.  Combeferre can tell by the twist of Grantaire's lips that it's forced and difficult to manage but he does it.  He does as he's been ordered.

"Grantaire," Enjolras goes on, "why did they come after you?"

It draws out a laugh, quiet and lazy and hollow.  "Because they remembered me."

"From where?"

"From where, when, how I took her."

"Took her?"

And R hums, lets his eyes slip closed.  "Her parents.  They used her.  Paid a debt."

Combeferre hears his own sound of disbelief echoed by the man at R's side.

Enjolras is righteous in fury.  "They sold their own daughter to pay a debt?"

Grantaire hums again, laughs again.  "Sold two baby boys before."

Combeferre practically chokes on his own horror at the thought.

But the story goes on.

"So I took them.  Eponine and Gavroche.  Azelma, too, but she met some guy.  Stuck with him instead."  R shifts, leans back.  Enjolras takes the chance to look back, eyes blazing.  'Ferre can only remove his glasses and shake his head.  Grantaire mumbles.  "They got away."

"Who got away, R?"

Silence.

"R?"

Nothing.

"Grantaire, hey."

But R has tipped over, rests on his side, pulling knees to his chest, one hand over his face and the other reaching, grasping, fingers curling around Enjolras's wrist as he groans.  "Sick."

Combeferre retrieves the waste bin from his desk just in time to shove R to the edge of the bed and catch the former contents of his stomach with a cringe.  It takes three heaves before it's over.  Enjolras, arm caught tight, stares at the ceiling until he's done.

"Grantaire?"

"Hnngh."

"Get some rest."

Watching R's face, 'Ferre feels his heart break.  There are more pieces in his chest now, he thinks, than there are countries in the world.  Grantaire stares back at him with the faintest hint of tears before closing his eyes.  Combeferre sets the bin by the bed and turns to leave.

"Grantaire?"  It's Enjolras, perched at the end of the bed, wrist captured.  "R, you need to let go."

The Guide knows well the road that they travel, knows that tears in the eyes means R is verging on sobbing when his voice cracks on mumbling.  "Please stay."

Enjolras, for once in his life, looks less shocked than helpless.

And as he leaves, Combeferre hears the bed creak behind his closed door.


End file.
